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Higgs,

Higgs is a cat and an armchair scientist, who is fascinated by astronomy, physics, evolution, and human behavior. He also enjoys scratching the arms of the couch. You can keep up with him on Twitter here.

As I’ve observed before, some of you humans have problems accepting evolution because you’re embarrassed by your relatives.

I, on the other hand, embrace evolution and all its implications for my family tree. My little heart swells with pride when we watch a video and the MGM lion gives his introductory roar. I’m happy to be called a tiger’s uncle, a jaguar’s cousin.

Last week, the scientific spotlight focused on the gifts of another of my fine relatives—the cheetah. This beautiful creature has long been known as the world’s fastest land animal. It’s been clocked at more than 60 m.p.h. But that’s not all that’s remarkable about the cheetah’s speed.

Scientists interested in better understanding cheetahs developed a special collar that included a GPS and scientific instruments designed to record acceleration and deceleration. The scientists then traveled to Botswana, where they put the collars on five wild cheetahs. They found that on successful hunts, the cheetahs never reached their top speeds, but counted on feats of agility—the ability to turn on a dime and ramp their speeds up and down by 30 m.p.h. in a mere second.

The researchers published a paper on these cheetah acceleration experiments last week in the journal Nature. “We recorded some of the highest measured values for lateral and forward acceleration, deceleration and body-mass-specific power for any terrestrial mammal,” they wrote. Right on, brothers and sisters!

In the paper, they describe all sorts of acceleration-enhancing features of the cheetah body, from a flexible back (to increase stride length) to claws that stay partly extended to produce traction like soccer cleats.

As you can probably imagine, it’s a constant temptation for cats to believe in intelligent design. It’s easy to assume that our kind must have come about through the careful engineering feats of a great cat in the ceiling.

But there’s abundant evidence to show that with enough time, natural selection can produce even the wonders of feline agility. And DNA evidence shows that we cats are as closely related to each other as you humans are to your fellow apes.

But don’t be jealous, please. You humans have special abilities too. For one thing, we cats all poop out at long distances. A cheetah could never run a marathon, for example. Very few animals can. You can read more about your special long-distance running gift here.

Besides, you’re related to the cheetah too, just not as closely as I am. Humans and cats share a common mammalian ancestor that lived about 94 million years ago. It’s true, that means you haven’t had a common ancestor with the cheetah since the days of the dinosaurs, but in the grand scheme of things, we are all kin.

Thank you for letting me express my views. — Higgs

References: The time for the divergence of humans and cats comes from this timetree calculator, developed by our human friend Blair Hedges, who is a biologist at Penn State University. For more detail about the study, read this news story from Nature.

Your use of this website constitutes and manifests your acceptance
of our User Agreement,
Privacy Policy,
Cookie Notification,
and awareness of the California Privacy Rights.
Pursuant to U.S. Copyright law, as well as other applicable federal
and state laws, the content on this website may not be reproduced,
distributed, displayed, transmitted, cached, or otherwise used,
without the prior, express, and written permission of Athlon Media Group.
Ad Choices